In order to gain detailed visibility to support effective communication network operations, administration, and management (OAM), it is important to be able to examine a flow packet trace along a forwarding path. Such path-associated data reflects the state and status of each flow packet's real-time experience and provide valuable information for network monitoring, measurement, and diagnosis.
Such data includes the detailed forwarding path, the timestamp/latency at each network node, and other information. Programmable data plane devices currently under development may allow even more sophisticated data to be obtained. All such data can be considered path-associated flow data, and is obtained by observing live user packets. Such data is complementary with other data acquired through indirect passive and active collecting and measuring techniques, such as Internet Protocol (IP) Flow Information Export (IPFIX) and Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP).